LAO Team Update April 14, 2003 LAO Team: Steve Arrington, Peter Huffer, Rob Parrott, Marcella Simon, Lisa Stedge, Karen Zolkiewicz and Liz Delsandro and Seunghun Ok

LAO Team Update The Challenge What we did Redesign Next Steps

The LAO Experience A brief history of LAO. LAO’s mission is to assist reading facilitators and dyads of facilitators and readers. A dyad is shown here.

LAO as Archaeological Dig This metaphor is appropriate because the site is so large (1000 pages) and complex. Each visit seems to unearth more information.

The Challenge The task seemed daunting at first…

The Challenge We realized that re-doing the site was impossible and we wanted to keep the useful and essential parts intact while boosting usability.

Input from Mike Add Pre and Post Testing Features: Story Builder and Read From the Web Add Content These are the suggestion from Mike about where he saw the site going.

What did we do? Performance Analysis Access and Usability of Key Features 508 Compliance Testing Options This was our initial snapshot of the site and where it might need improvement.

What did we do? Usability Tests Dyads and Singles Features Entry and Navigation These tests confirmed what we suspected and the areas we needed to target.

Assessments Redesign: Meeting in the Middle External Support Feature Usability Site Tour Help Function Story Builder Read from the Web Site Entry Home Page Registration Welcome pages Assessments This slide shows our division and labor and convergence as we are starting to realize our functions are creating overlapping navigation. Also, the puzzle remains: where to put the tests?

Problems: Confusing entry Forced to take the Site Tour “Join” instead of “Register” Text Heavy Navigation “below the fold”

Text links Login Resources for Readers and Their Helpers guest guest Search: LiteracyAccess On-Line provides reading activities and resources for readers and helpers including: Login Contact Us | Site Index Story Builder, where you can create stories, write reports, and save your work in your own account. Read from the Web, where you can hear language read out loud using a free download of BrowseAloud software and follow along, using our helpful tips and prompts. Free testing of reading ability for registered users. Register for free | Enter as a guest Read about the benefits of registration. Need help? Take our site tour or use our help function. guest Username guest Password Sign-In Cancel A father helps his daughter learn to read using Story Builder. Solutions: Active links instead of flat text Login instead of Join Guest registration for those who don’t want to register Site Tour Optional Page you go to is… Literacy Explorer Text links

Literacy Explorer Search: Contact Us | Site Index | Logout . Literacy Explorer is a reading system designed to lead the reader and reading facilitator through a reading session. Literacy Explorer involves three steps – pre-reading, reading, and post-reading. We provide strategies, activities, resources and tips for each one of these steps. Literacy Explorer contains three reading activities designed to motivate readers be providing them with stimulating content at their reading level and in their areas of interest. Story Builder allows you to create a story, report, or essay using material from the world wide web or your own words. You can insert images and pictures in your story. Registered users can save their stories in our Story Bank to be read later and can even publish their stories on the web. Read From the Web provides you with the opportunity to choose material on the world wide web and read it together, employing tips, resources, and strategies shown on the page. If you download the free screen reader BrowseAloud, you can listen to word pronunciation while you read. Read From the Bank allows you to choose a age level appropriate story, one of ours or one that you have created in Story Builder, from our story bank. “Meat” of the site – highlights all the main features. Text links

Redesign: Help Introducing…. The Help Dude The Help Guy will take a more central role… The Help Dude

Extrinsic Support Inventory of Help Redesign and Recategorization Contextual with the Help Dude

Intrinsic Support Story Builder New process flow The building process more closely approximates the reading process

Intrinsic Support

Intrinsic Support Read from the Web Another round of Usability Rethinking the tools and resources

Assessment Add on feature Pay and free option

Next Steps Innovations 2003 Continue Redesign Mock-ups New Pages Conduct on site usability Continue Redesign Mock-ups New Pages Final Recommendations for future (?) design teams